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THE MT VOID
08/21/26 -- Vol. 45, No. 8, Whole Number 2446
Editor: Evelyn Leeper,
evelynchimelisleeper@gmail.com
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Topics:
Steam-Driven Card Punches (comments by Mark R. Leeper)
PRECIOUS CHILDREN by Mary G. Thompson (book review
by Joe Karpierz)
Pardoning Power and Term Limits (letters of comment
by Gary McGath, Lawrence D'Oliveiro,
and Keith F. Lynch)
Subtitling vs. Dubbing (letter of comment
by Lawrence D'Oliveiro)
GOSFORD PARK (letter of comment by Peter Trei)
This Week's Reading (THE WRITER'S GUIDE TO EVERYDAY LIFE
IN THE 1800S; A DAY IN THE LIFE OF ANCIENT ROME;
A ROME OF ONE'S OWN; APES, ANGELS, AND VICTORIANS)
(book comments by Evelyn C. Leeper)
===================================================================
TOPIC: Steam-Driven Card Punches (comments by Mark R. Leeper)
[Our Supreme Leader has decided that aircraft carrier launch
systems should revert from the current Electromagnetic Aircraft
Launch System to steam-powered catapults and hydraulic elevators.
As usual Mark was well ahead of that curve, in this editorial from
the 09/07/1990 MT VOID. -ecl]
Right here in the science fiction notice we can see in microcosm
the sort of revolution that is taking hold of computing in
general. We offer the MT VOID in two flavors. You can get it
either on-line or you can get a paper copy. Now if the trend
toward the paperless office were real, you would think people
would flock to getting the on-line version, but that is really not
the case. People seem to sense that the right version of the
notice is on sheets of paper. And why? Because they know
intuitively that the on-line version is one more step removed from
what computing is *really* all about. And what is that? I think we
all know. Computing is about boxes of cards. And many leading
computer scientists now say they knew it all along.
It is true that the television generation had its temporary
flirtation with cathode-ray tube representations of card images.
(and after all, what is a disk file but a television
representation of a stack of cards?) But secretly in the back
rooms of America's major universities and research companies, top
computer scientists are returning to the safe, dependable,
reassuring technology of punched cards and keypunches.
The keypunches of the future, of course, will not be the clunkers
many of us are used to, but sleek, ecology-minded, steam-driven
keypunches that do not rely on electrical power. Dr. Melodij
Ardenelesti of Bell Laboratories, Murray Hill, told our reporter
that every developer at Murray Hill could be serviced by
steam-driven keypunches powered by only five of the powerful new
two-story boilers placed in strategic locations around the
building. They can even be powered by burning printouts. The
problems are not insurmountable, Ardenelesti told us. "Input media
may be only the beginning. By the year 2035 entire computer
centers may be running on steam power. Among the advantages, steam
computing eliminates the need for expensive air conditioning. It
is a well-understood technology. In the future, powering up your
PC at home may be as simple as putting a tea kettle on the stove
is today. But first we need to get the keypunches working." Major
challenges? Most current steam keypunches cause the cards produced
to "wilt" and one site reports problems with mildew.
If, indeed, there is a marriage of the new steam computing
technology with a return to punched cards, there are many
advantages that have been cited:
- Card decks lead to better programming. Currently many
programmers write long, inefficient programs. A major cause is
that they just cannot get a very good feel for the size of their
programs when they see only a small piece at a time on a CRT.
Dealing with card decks helps keep a developer more "in touch"
with the program. It also contributes to physical fitness.
- Card decks lend themselves very easily to multi-media
applications, as notes and comments may be hand-written on
computer cards.
- Card decks provide greater security and are much harder to
pirate than are disk files. A piece of foreign code such as a worm
or a virus is much harder to introduce since one must be
physically present to stuff it in a deck. Using different colored
cards, with the color of a deck chosen at random, further
frustrates would-be hackers.
- The safety of CRTs has been called into question in the last
few years, but card and paper technology have to date never been
questioned.
But leading computer scientists, off the record, list another
virtue that is harder to quantify. There is a certain tactile
pleasure in your hand a program, with its own characteristic
weight and heft based on the size of the program. As one IBM
computer scientist told us, "There was a need and this thing in my
hand fulfills that need. It is not made up of electron positions
that other equipment tells us about. It is here, self-contained in
my hand. It is a sort of existential satisfaction that was present
in earlier days of computing and we are looking forward to its
return." Several cutting-edge technology companies are betting
that feeling will become more common. [-mrl]
[Various people have also suggested replacing ballistic missiles
with trebuchets and missile interceptors with slings. -ecl]
===================================================================
TOPIC: PRECIOUS CHILDREN by Mary G. Thompson (copyright 2026,
Tachyon Publications, publication date September 1, 2026, ISBN: 978-1-61696-465-8 (print); 978-1-61696-466-5 (digital)) (book
review by Joe Karpierz)
Those readers who are parents, who have raised children from
infancy through adulthood, know what a challenge that endeavor can
be. We love them unconditionally, but they can drive us to
distraction. As they grow older and develop their personalities,
as they become who they will be in life, there are times we just
don't know who they are (and yes, they don't know who they are
either). They change seemingly from day to day, if not hour by
hour or minute by minute. It almost seems like they have multiple personalities.
And yet, we would absolutely hate to lose them under any
circumstances. What parent wouldn't want their child back, no
matter what the cost? We go to great lengths to protect them, so
they don't accidentally pass away, but it still happens. Nothing
in life is guaranteed, including life itself. But what if there
was a technology that allowed us to do just that? Would we take
advantage of it? Could we take advantage of it? Would we have the
means to take advantage of it?
Mary G. Thompson's PRECIOUS CHILDREN takes us to a world in which
not only the birthrate is plummeting, but children are dying at an
alarming rate. The government is concerned, so the President's
Population program is developed, which will allow people who have
the means--that is, money--to generate thousands of clones of
themselves. Those clones get to live with other families and have
normal lives, but the caveat is that if one of the clones is
needed because a child died, the original parents are allowed to
select one and have the memories of the previous child transferred
to the clone, thus replacing the previous child. Additionally, a
child continually backs up its consciousness
to ... somewhere...under the auspices of Generations, Inc. So, the consciousness and the memories are transferred to and replace
those of the selected child such that the parents never have to
lose their, well, precious children. Of course, this wouldn't be
much of a story if the process always succeeded.
Dina and Preston Blake are participants in the President's
population program. Di and Geoff are clones of their parents. Dina
and Preston, as you might guess, are extremely wealthy. We really
don't know what Preston does for a living that allows him to have
the means to be part of the program. Dina is the stay-at-home
mom--more accurately, neurotic mom. As the story opens, Geoff has
died for the second time, and Dina is a mess, living on stims to
help her cope with the tragedy of losing her son and the
possibility of losing her daughter. Preston does care for his wife
and kids, but he's not too concerned with what's going on with
them. He's very conscious of his image, and hey, we have the money
to take care of everything, so what is there to really worry about?
But, as I said earlier, this wouldn't be much of a story if the consciousness/memory transfer always worked. And in the case of
the transfer of Geoff into a boy named Nathan, the transfer isn't
quite right. There's something going on, and Di knows exactly what
it is, why it is, and what is supposed to happen. Dina is
over-stimmed and breaking down, and Preston thinks that all he has
to do is calm everyone down and everything will be fine. Dina and
Preston are so detached from their children--and why wouldn't they
be, they can just get another one?--that they cannot see what's
going on right in front of them.
PRECIOUS CHILDREN is a frightening story of wealth, privilege, and
bad parenting. The reader does get a glimpse into the inner
workings of Generations, Inc., the population program, and the
government, just enough to see that there's something not quite
right going on with those entities as well. While I liked the
concept and the story, it seems to me that PRECIOUS CHILDREN would
have benefitted from being a longer book. There are a few
unanswered questions that nagged me as a reader, and some things
were left unsaid or not further explored. Having said all that,
however, I do like this book and would recommend it. You may be
creeped out by it, especially if you're a parent currently raising
children. Once you finish reading PRECIOUS CHILDREN, you may want
to keep a close eye on the kids. They may be up to something. Just
remember they're the only ones you have. [-jak]
===================================================================
TOPIC: Pardoning Power and Term Limits (letters of comment by Gary
McGath, Lawrence D'Oliveiro, and Keith F. Lynch)
In response to Evelyn's comments on the Presidential pardoning
power as discussed in the Federalist Papers in the 08/14/26 issue
of the MT VOID, Gary McGath writes:
That leads to a paradoxical thought: Perhaps the advocates of the
pardoning power supported it partly because George III had set a
good example. The Declaration of Independence blames him for a lot
of things that weren't under his control, and there were real
things to criticize him for, but he rarely abused his powers. The
Founders knew this, even if they found it useful to pile
accusations on a single villain rather than a more nebulous
Parliament. They were inclined by the examples of him and George
Washington to put too much trust in a single person with executive
power. [-gmg]
Lawrence D'Oliveiro responds:
Have you noticed that Parliamentary systems seem to have less need
of term limits? And they have no concept of rCLimpeachmentrCY;
instead, Parliament just needs to pass a vote of no confidence in
the Government and its Prime Minister, and down they come. [-ldo]
And Keith F. Lynch adds:
What I've noticed is that Britain's PM's have often had
non-consecutive terms. 305 years of PMs vs. 237 years of US
presidents, just 28% more time. That's 59 unique PMs serving 81
terms, vs. 45 unique US presidents serving 47 terms. (Not
counting immediately consecutive terms.)
Presidents Grover Cleveland and Donald Trump served (or are
currently serving) non-consecutive terms. PMs who have served
non-consecutive terms include Winston Churchill, William Pitt the
Younger, William Lamb, William Cavendish-Bentinck, Thomas
Pelham-Holles, Robert Peel, Ramsay MacDonald, John Russell, Henry
John Temple, Harold Wilson, Charles Watson-Wentworth, Benjamin
Disraeli, and Arthur Wellesley (2 non-consecutive terms each),
Robert Gascoyne-Cecil, Edward
Smith-Stanley William, and Stanley Baldwin (3 non-consecutive
terms each), and William Gladstone (4 non-consecutive terms).
But there have been no repeat PMs in the last half-century. [-kfl]
Evelyn elaborates:
If one looks at how long various PMs were in office, in the last
century only two lasted long enough to hit the term limit the US
has for Presidents: Margaret Thatcher and Tony Blair. [-ecl]
===================================================================
TOPIC: Subtitling vs. Dubbing (letter of comment by Lawrence
D'Oliveiro)
In response to Evelyn's comments on subtitling and dubbing in the
08/14/26 issue of the MT VOID, Lawrence D'Oliveiro writes:
[Evelyn writes,] "One complaint I have is that a lot [of the film
CLOUD] is being conveyed by screen shots of computers, sometimes
scrolling, and most of it is not subtitled." [-ecl]
Some people seem to prefer dubbing to subtitles, I donrCOt know why
... [-ldo]
Evelyn responds:
One reason is that people need to look away from the visuals on
the screen to read the subtitles, and the slower they read, the
worse it is. [-ecl]
===================================================================
TOPIC: GOSFORD PARK (letter of comment by Peter Trei)
In response to Evelyn's comments on GOSFORD PARK in the 08/14/26
issue of the MT VOID, Peter Trei writes:
If you get a chance, I highly recommend watching it with the
director's commentary sound track.
The servants and service are the actual topic of the movie. There
is a servant in every scene, and the movie is an exploration of
the master/servant relationship. The 'whodunit' aspect is just the
McGuffin to weave that exploration around.
Listening to that really opened up the movie for me. [-pt]
Evelyn responds:
Actually, I think that writer-producer Julian Fellowes's
commentary is even better. (This may be the one to which you are
referring.) Apparently he had older relatives who actually lived
somewhat in the manner of GOSFORD PARK and drew upon that
knowledge as well as general knowledge to comment on British
society and the class system. On the other hand, director Robert
Altman gives a fairly standard director's commentary. [-ecl]
[Note: Last night I re-watched GOSFORD PARK with Fellowes's
commentary and I am 99.9% sure that's the commentary you meant.
-ecl]
===================================================================
TOPIC: This Week's Reading (book comments by Evelyn C. Leeper)
Three books about history, complete with my quibbles:
THE WRITER'S GUIDE TO EVERYDAY LIFE IN THE 1800S by Marc
McCutcheon (WriterrCOs Digest, ISBN 0-89879-541-9) sounded
interesting, maybe something along the lines of WHAT JANE AUSTEN
ATE AND CHARLES DICKENS KNEW. Alas, it was more just a set of
dictionary entries (e.g., "wildcat money" followed by a definition
and then a series of quotations using it, the quotations being a
large part of the text). Occasionally there would be more
commentary on a term, but this is more a book to use as a
reference if you are *reading* a historical novel than something
to use while writing one, because you need to know the term before
you can look it up. (I suppose an author could read the entire
chapter on money and make notes about terms to use, but that seems inefficient.) My other note is that it is not entirely accurate.
For example, it claims that collard greens are kale leaves, but
collard greens and kale are two different variations of the same
species, and definitely taste differents.
A DAY IN THE LIFE OF ANCIENT ROME: DAILY LIFE, MYSTERIES, AND
CURIOSITIES by Alberto Angela (Europa, ISBN 978-1-933-37271-6)
is aimed more at a general audience than many of the books about
ancient Rome that I have been reading, and as such is more
readable than, say, THE CROWD IN ROME IN THE LATE REPUBLIC by
Fergus Millar or PUBLIC SPECTACLES IN ROME AND LATE ANTIQUE
PALESTINE by Zeev Weiss. Angela has been a television commentator,
so it is not surprising that he structured his book as a walk
through Rome on a typical day, the text reading much as a tour
guide would present it.
I always have a quibble, but this time I have at least three.
First, Angela talks about going to the ovine section of the market
and seeing goats. They would be in the caprine section; the ovine
section would have sheep. The Romans raised both.
Okay, that is a little obscure. But the second quibble indicates
that while the author may have had a temporary "brain fart", no
one at Europa was copy-editing this book, because on page 205
Angela claims that Marcus Aurelius gave the funeral oration for
Julius Caesar on the Forum, "as seen in many films." NO! Marc
Antony gave the funeral oration; (Emperor) Marcus Aurelius lived
two hundred years later. (The films would be primarily those based
on Shakespeare's JULIUS CAESAR, notably the 1953 and 1970
versions.)
And the third quibble, though this is more or less a constant
quibble: authors seem to either be ignorant of menstruation or
have decided it's just too "icky" to write about (even as they
write detailed descriptions of injuries and deaths). Angela has a
whole chapter on sex, and also covers childbirth, but never
mentions how Roman women dealt with menstruation, or what the
attitude was towards it. As I noted in my comments in the 07/03/26
issue, Xiaolu Guo does not avoid the issue in ISHMAELLE, but she
is the exception.
A ROME OF ONE'S OWN by Emma Southon (Abrams Press, ISBN
978-1-4197-6018-1) is about women in ancient Rome, and if
PUBLIC SPECTACLES IN ROME AND LATE ANTIQUE PALESTINE was overly
academic, and A DAY IN THE LIFE OF ANCIENT ROME more aimed at a
general audience, A ROME OF ONE'S OWN is downright chatty. Southon
seems determined to present a text ready-made for an audiobook.
Here's a sample paragraph:
Julia was born while her dad was about half-way along
his Pokemon evolution from awkward sickly teenager to
the Great Augustus, and right at the end of his second
marriage. And I really mean *right* at the end. The day
she was born, her dad served her mum Scribonia divorce
papers. Right as she's lying there, just having survived
her third labour without painkillers, holding her
swaddled hours-old daughter, he walks out on their
marriage because it is no longer useful to him. Augustus
is ice-cold like that his entire life. Modern
descriptions of Augustus's decision to divorce Scribonia
are emblematic of the misogyny permeating, well,
everything. The description most often quoted is that of
Suetonius, which says, in the original, "'pertaesus',
ut scribit, 'morum perversitatum eius'". This broadly
means he was bored or wearied by her ways. But that
little adjective, "perversitatum", had variously been
translated as bitter, shrewish and nagging. "Perversus"
means none of these things. It just means wrong or bad.
Nagging and shrewish and bitter are how male
translators have *interpreted* a "bad" wife. And none of
them managed to resolve in their minds the later
statement by Suetonius that Scribonia's main issue with
their marriage had been that Augustus wouldn't stop
knobbing other women. Shrewish indeed.
But I swear that copy-editing is dead, dead, dead. People talk
about how giving something from the Internet as a citation to
support a claim, and one should read books. Well, *this* book
claims Julius Caesar was assassinated in 45 B.C.E. Now, if there
is one date from people know from ancient Rome it is that Julius
Caesar was assassinated on the Ides of March, 44 B.C.E.
And she talks about Gaius, who succeeded Tiberius and preceded his
(Gaius's) uncle Claudius as Emperor. Gaius Julius Caesar Augustus
Germanicus was better known as Caligula; Southon has a tendency to
decide randomly whether to call someone by their official name (as
here, where she doesn't even give you a parenthetical "a.k.a."),
or by the name by which they are now known (as for Caracalla).
[Apparently copy-editing has been dead for a long time. In the
1982 reprint of the 1955 APES, ANGELS, AND VICTORIANS, author
William Irvine spells Alfred Russel Wallace's name wrong
throughout. Sir Julian Huxley--grandson of Thomas Henry Huxley,
great-nephew of Matthew Arnold, and brother to Aldous Huxley--does
get it right in his introduction for this edition, though.]
[-ecl]
===================================================================
Evelyn C. Leeper
evelynchimelisleeper@gmail.com
During almost fifteen centuries the legal establishment
of Christianity has been upon trial. What has been its
fruits? More or less, in all places, pride and
indolence in the clergy; ignorance and servility in the
laity; in both, superstition, bigotry, and persecution.
--James Madison
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